Just across Canal St from the French Quarter are the refurbished factories and stockyards of the Warehouse District. Cochon, and its Executive Chef Donald Link, are right at home there. Cochon cooks Cajun food, the down-home, country-style cuisine of Louisiana.
Much like French countryside peasant cuisine, we see a lot of cheap and simple ingredients cooked beautifully. Rabbit, duck and pork (everything but the squeal) abound, as those are the things you can raise and catch while living on the land.
Of course, in the swamps of Cajun country, that list also includes alligator, so there’s a fried gator with garlic mayonnaise dish on the menu as well.
This foundry-like wood burning oven where they finish off about half of their Cajun dishes. I like to imagine that the beast was immovably installed for forging or smelting in whatever the building used to be, but this probably isn’t true.
I had fried chicken livers on toast with pepper jelly. I love chicken livers, but I’d never thought to batter and fry them before. The pepper jelly is weirdly what it sounds like: a jelly (jam) made from bell peppers and chillies. It’s sweet and tangy and spicy.
The Louisiana Cochon at Cochon – with cabbage, cracklins and pickled turnips
And I love what comes out of it: smoked pork ribs with watermelon pickle.
